Limits of Domestication.

31

and grim, and an exceedingly small portion of a pair of inexpressibles.

We believe that neither the great French naturalist, nor any other naturalist, great or small, denies the providential implanting of a peculiar instinct in all animals which have been domesticated an instinct capable, under the combined influence of fear and affection, of being strengthened in certain directions and weakened in others; but still the subjugation itself is the actual work of man, and is, in truth, a great achievement. A dog desires to lick your hand, and a wolf your blood; and there is such a decided difference in the nature of the two intentions, that it should be kept carefully in mind by all sensible men, women, and children. We know not whether we can even concede to Mr. Swainson his assertion that there is only a limited number of animals to whom has been given "an innate propensity to live by free choice near the haunts of man, or to submit themselves cheerfully and willingly to his domestication." We believe that innumerable tribes, excluded by Mr. Swainson's category, are just as capable of domestication as the others, were they worth the trouble; but there are many useless animals in the world, (viewing them, that is, only in their economical relations to ourselves,) and these it would assuredly be a waste of labour to reclaim from their natural state, which is that of well-founded fear for the lord of the creation. Besides, it is not the most valuable of our domesticated animals, which, in the wild state, live by choice in the vicinity of human habitations, or submit themselves most cheerfully to man's dominion. Neither is it the nature, considered by itself alone, of any creature's attributes, which determines its being reduced to the domestic state. The social condition of man himself, and his own advancement in civilization and domestic life, must be likewise taken to account. Ask the North American Indian, as he wanders through leafless woods, or over sterile plains, or across the snowy surface of frost-bound lakes, or crackling rivers, whether the rein-deer, which he may be then tracking in cold and hunger, is capable, like the dog, of domestication. His reply would be, that you might as soon seek to domesticate the grizzly bear or prong-horned antelope. Put the same question to the nomadian of the north of Europe, the forlorn Laplander, and he will tell you (in still greater amazement at your ignorance) that for every domestic purpose there is no such animal on all the earth. It is, therefore, the wildness of man rather than the stubbornness of beast which so frequently interferes with the progress of domestication. "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame." James iii. 7. And this last statement, from a

source which none can gainsay, no doubt accounts for the fact that one naturalist should abuse another without sufficient

reason.

*

Mr. Swainson states his surprise (in loc. cit.) that any one should countenance the assertion of those sceptical writers who "term this wonderful instinct the work of man." In this we conceive lies his misconception of the whole matter. He seems to think that the writers whom he criticizes assert that man has formed the peculiar instincts of certain species; whereas these writers, whether right or wrong, merely maintain that the human race has taken advantage of such instincts, and by control and cultivation has turned them to its own advantage. What is the natural portion of instinct in the procedure of the pointer dog? Surely this, that when it has scented the game it stands still for a time warily, and then advances with greater caution, that it may eventually spring upon and secure it for itself. What is the acquired or artificial portion? That steady, sedate, and "self-denying ordinance," which directs it to indicate the existence and position of the game, or, if encouraged, cautiously to lead towards it, that it may be slaughtered by and for its master. The former delay is a mere piece of instinctive prudence, that the quadruped may spring at last upon its prey with more unerring aim, the latter is a conventional indication to the biped

* We shall not take upon us to question Mr. Swainson's scholarship, or doubt his clear comprehension of the passages he reprehends. But in his own discourse on the "Classification of Quadrupeds," p. 15., where he takes occasion to state the characters which distinguish animals and plants, we find the following passage: "Vegetables derive their nutriment from the sun, and from the circumfluent atmosphere, in the form of water, which is a combination of oxygen and hydrogen; of air containing oxygen and azote; and of carbonic acid, composed of oxygen and carbon." Now, the meaning of this is by no means clear, or rather it is very clear that it has no meaning at all. As a general reference is made to one of Cuvier's works as the source of this extraordinary piece of physiology, we glanced over the Introduction to the "Règne Animal," and soon found as follows:-" Le sol et l'atmosphère présentent aux végétaux pour leur nutrition de l'eau, qui se compose d'oxygène et d'hydrogène, de l'air qui contient de l'oxygène et de l'azote ; et de l'acide carbonique qui est une combinaison d'oxygène et de carbone." p. 20. Now, we are ready to maintain, that although sol, during fine weather, is very fair latin for sun, it is certainly not French for any thing half so lustrous, but, in the latter language, means simply soil, or "mother earth," and not the god of day. The passage, of course, signifies that earth and atmosphere furnish food for vegetation by means of water, which is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, of air, which contains oxygen and azote,-and of carbonic acid, which is a combination of oxygen and carbon. We observe, that in a concluding Note (p. 16), Mr. Swainson states, "As it might be thought objectionable, in a popular work of this nature, to quote foreign authors in their own language, we have, upon this and other occasions, cited Mr. Griffith's translation of the Règne Animal, rather than the original." Mr. S. might surely, with no loss of popularity, have given us a correct translation of his own, without quoting either a foreign language or an unintelligible version by another person; and this would have been a proper and praiseworthy way of using books without abusing them.

Theories of Buffon and Pallas.

33333

who carries the gun, that it is now his business to conclude the work. This conversion, under man's guidance, of a momentary pause to a full stop, has been typographically compared to the changing of a semicolon to a point.

We believe it was Buffon who first broached the notion that the shepherd's dog is that which approaches nearest to the pri mitive race, since in all countries inhabited by savages, or men half-civilized, the dogs resemble this breed more than any other.

"If we also consider," he observes, "that this dog, notwithstanding his ugliness, and his wild and melancholy look, is still superior. in instinct to all others,-that he has a decided character in which education has no share, that he is the only kind born as it were already trained that, guided by natural powers alone, he applies himself to the care of our flocks, which he executes with singular fidelity, that he conducts them with an admirable intelligence which has not been communicated to him,—that his talents astonish at the same time that they give repose to his master, while it requires much time and trouble to instruct other dogs for the purposes to which they are destined: If we reflect on these facts, we shall be confirmed in the opinion, that the shepherd's dog is the true dog of nature,—the dog that has been bestowed upon us on account of his greatest utility; that he bears the greatest relationship to the general order of animated beings, which have mutual need of each other's assistance; that he is, in short, the one we ought to look upon as the stock and model of the whole species."*

We admire shepherds, and shepherd's dogs, and sheep, and take great delight in the "pastoral melancholy" of lonesome treeless valleys, whether green or gray (alternate stony streams, the beds of winter torrents, and verdurous sloping sweeps of brighter pasture), resounding with the varied bleating of the woolly people; but as we know that there are many countries without either sheep or shepherds, yet abounding in dogs of so wild and uncultivated a nature, that they would far rather worry mutton on their own account, than watch it on account of others, we cannot admit the foregoing explanation to be true. The fact is, that so long as we seek with Buffon for the origin of all domestic dogs in a single source, we shall seek in vain. Their widely diversified nature and attributes cannot be explained or accounted for by the influence of climate, and the modifying effects of domestication-however various and important these may be acting on the descendants of only one original species. Pallas, a German naturalist, long settled in Russia, was among the first to give currency to the opinion, that the dog, viewed in its generality, ought to be regarded in a great mea

Histoire des Quadrupèdes, t. i. p. 204.

VOL. VII, NO. XIII.

C

sure as an adventitious animal, that is to say, as a creature produced by the diversified, and, in some cases, fortuitous alliance of several natural species. This idea is now a prevailing one, and we certainly give to it our own assent. An excellent English naturalist, Mr. Bell (in his recent "History of British Quadrupeds"), adheres to the older notion, that the wolf is the original stock from which all our domesticated dogs have been derived. There are many wolves in this world, and several very savage ones in America, and on an enlarged view of the subject it might be difficult to choose impartially among them, although the dogs of the western regions may be thought entitled to claim descent from their own wolves, to the same extent as ours may from those of Europe. Now as the wild species of the Old and New World are deemed distinct by the majority of naturalists, and as each of those great divisions of the globe gives us more than a single wolf, we start in this way with a somewhat complex paternity from the beginning.

There are many wild dogs, strictly so called, of very different character and conduct, in various countries, but none of them, even after centuries of freedom (supposing that they are only emancipated varieties), have reverted to the wolfish state. The true pariah dog of India is well known, as a wild species to be an inhabitant of woody districts, remote from man, among the lower ranges of the Himalaya mountains, where the wolf is likewise known, but with which it does not intermingle in the natural state. If the dhole of India, the buansa of Nepaul, the dingho of New Holland, and the aguaras or wild dogs of South America, were neither more nor less than wolves, what prevents their assuming the aspect of their progenitors, seeing that they pass their lives in a state of entire freedom from all control, and unsubjected to the modifying influences of artificial life? Although many wild dogs, commonly so called, may have sprung from the alienated descendants of domesticated kinds, there is no doubt of the existence of species, wild ab origine, and more nearly allied to several of our subjugated kinds, than is the wolf itself. At the same time, the latter is in one sense a wild dog, and is certainly entitled in that character to be regarded as the stock of more than one domestic breed, at least of the northern parts of Europe and America. But when, after a careful and extended survey of canine species and varieties, we find not only a diversity both of wild and tame species, but a diversity in which the nature and attributes of the domesticated breeds of certain countries in a great measure correspond with the nature and attributes of the unreclaimed animals of those same countries, we are led to consider whether such facts cannot be accounted for rather by a connexion in blood, than a mere coinci

The Jackal and Wolf-Extract from Parry.

35

dence. If, for example, Pallas and Guldenstaedt have shown that the dogs of the Kalmucks scarcely differ in any thing from the jackal, why should we go to the wolf, although it should exist within the natural range of these Northern Asiatics? Still more, if Professor Kretschmer (in Rüppel's Atlas) in describing the Frankfort Museum, shows that another jackal (Canis Anthus) is the type of one of the dogs of ancient Egypt, and proves not alone from the correspondence of antique figures, both in painting and sculpture, but by the comparison of a skull from the catacombs of Lycopolis, that these creatures so resemble each other as to be almost identical,-why should we refer so exclusively to the muscular wolf as the progenitor of such comparatively feeble forms? Or is it likely, from what we know of other animals, and the limits of variation which nature has assigned even to the most variable species, that the whole of our infinitely diversified tribes of dogs, from the noble and gigantic stag-hound, to the useful terrier, and degraded pug-dog, have all sprung originally from one and the same blood-thirsty savage? We can scarcely conceive the possibility, and in no way see the necessity of such a parentage.

That the wolf and dog breed freely together had, however, been long ascertained from experiments made in a state of confinement (we can scarcely call it domestication), and that they freely seek each other's society, as belonging to the same kind, has been still more explicitly proved in later years, when at least one of the animals was in a condition of total wildness. During Sir Edward Parry's first voyage (see Supplement to the Appendix) frequent instances were observed of more than one dog belonging to the officers being enticed away by she wolves. "In December and January, which are the months in which wolves are in season, a female paid almost daily visits to the neighbourhood of the ships, and remained till she was joined by a setter dog belonging to one of the officers. They were usually together for two or three hours; and as they did not go far away unless an endeavour was made to approach them, repeated and decided evidence was obtained of the purpose for which they were thus associated. As they became more familiar, the absences of the dog were of longer continuance, until, at length, he did not return, having probably fallen a sacrifice in an encounter with a male wolf. The female, however, continued to visit the ships as before, and enticed a second dog in the same manner, which, after several meetings, returned so severely bitten as to be disabled for many days."

The Esquimaux dogs bear a strong resemblance to the northern wolves, and we do not see how they could have sprung from any other source. "Without entering," says Sir John Richard